Yellow Red Yellow - 2: Dream
Dream. Yeah, this has to be a dream. It makes sense. At some point, the body of a fully grown adult had turned into that of a tiny child.
“Hmm.”
I quietly looked down at my hands. They were incredibly pale and impossibly small. I raised my head and checked my reflection in the window. Three years old, maybe four at most. In this world, there was no way a grown man could suddenly become a child. No matter how much ability powers ran wild, no matter how many monsters roamed the streets, and no matter how enthusiastically the villains shouted “Oho!” while smashing the world to pieces. Even then, no drug that could make someone younger had ever been developed. Therefore, everything I was seeing right now was nothing more than a scene from a dream.
‘Or maybe I’ve possessed someone in a different novel?’
Hmm. That was also a fairly reasonable suspicion. After all, Baek Seojin’s life itself had begun thanks to a sudden possession. Even if I started over as yet another new character, there was no reason to react with disbelief. I could simply think, Ah, another damn possession.
“What the hell? Why is this out here?”
At the sudden voice, I turned my head. Two people stood there wearing gas masks like they were conducting chemical warfare drills. From the voice, at least one was definitely a man.
“Didn’t you properly inject the sleeping gas?”
“I did. All the other kids are asleep right now…”
The hesitant reply came from a woman. Sleeping gas, huh. When you thought about it, this really was chemical warfare. A bit different from what I had imagined, though.
“Kid.”
At the word “kid,” I instinctively looked around. Was there a kid here? Ah. Right now, that kid was me.
“Come on, let’s go. Yeah? Listen to noona. Hurry!”
I was going to. If they were talking like that, there had to be a reason. People wearing gas masks weren’t the type to kindly repeat themselves twice. But contrary to my thoughts, the child didn’t move. It simply stood there, staring at the two masked figures.
“What are you doing! Hurry! Take my hand!”
The woman’s voice grew slightly urgent. She seemed to be watching the man beside her. When someone reacted like that, what came next was obvious. I tried once more to move, but the body refused to budge. It was clearly me. This child was me, so why wouldn’t it move?
“What is this? Is the little brat going through a rebellious phase?”
“T-that can’t be it. He must have just woken up startled…”
“Move.”
The man shoved the woman aside and walked over with heavy steps. It was a little late, but it would be nice if the kid listened now. Goddammit. The child still showed no sign of obeying.
“Kid.”
By then the man had reached me. He flashed a crooked grin. I couldn’t see the smile, but I knew it was there. If he took off that gas mask, I was certain of it. The bastard vibe dripping from his voice. That hand rising right now. Yeah. Just from that, it was obvious what kind of expression the bastard was making.
“When an adult tells you to do something, you listen. Before you get hit.”
What happened next was exactly what anyone would expect. A loud thwack rang out as the child collapsed forward. That was the final fragment of the dream I saw.
More than that, wasn’t this supposed to be a dream? And not just any dream, but a complete nightmare. So why did it hurt this much? It felt exactly like I had really been hit.
It was a flawless and perfect evaluation.
As the gatekeeper, I fulfilled my duty as expected.
The moment I opened my eyes, those were the two sentences waiting for me. They were identical to the messages that had appeared after I dealt with the Alpha in the dungeon. And they would probably just toss me some half-hearted reward again.
I’m not falling for it this time. I’m not expecting anything.
I’d check later. For now, I pushed it aside. The important thing was figuring out my current situation.
First, I examined my body. I had been worried that some part of me had been severed and replaced with a prosthetic. After a brawl with an Elder, it would be stranger if all my limbs were intact. I looked left, right, up, and down. I checked again and again. Fortunately, all four limbs seemed perfectly fine. My fingers and toes moved without issue, so there was no paralysis either.
Okay, next. Just like last time… Yeah. I’m stuck in a hospital room again.
I let out a laugh before I could stop myself. Last time I had met Kwak Hyuk and gotten beaten like a dog on a hot summer day. After spending some time in the hospital, I was discharged soon after. And now here I was again, in the hospital after another encounter with Kwak Hyuk. At this point it felt like déjà vu.
The silver lining was that last time I had simply been on the receiving end. This second meeting, I had landed a solid blow on him instead.
My memory is hazy, but the sensation that traveled through my hand remains crystal clear.
I lowered my head and glanced at both hands. Until recently these hands had never touched anything outside of work. Just scribbling documents, typing on keyboards, and suffering through dispatch missions. Or frantically clicking away at a keyboard and mouse after getting home from work.
Yet these same two hands had confronted a colossal existence known as an Elder. It wouldn’t have been strange if I had been killed instantly, but somehow I had endured. Not only that, I had even managed to cut the Elder down.
Thinking about it again… it still doesn’t feel real.
I was still dazed. I even wondered if what I remembered had been a dream. If the Elder was the type to take injuries from just anyone, he never would have earned the title of world-class disaster. But the bastard had definitely been badly wounded. The blood that had dyed the floor red belonged to the Elder, not me. Hyun Sujin had emphasized that point too, saying, “If you keep fighting, you’ll lose to Han Jiyun.” The reason he had retreated so obediently was probably because he had assessed his own damage.
“I bought this.”
I unconsciously muttered the same chat message that always popped up in games.
I turned my head slightly to examine the hospital room. Just like last time, it was ridiculously luxurious. The kind of space that made you wonder whether it was a hospital room or a hotel suite. The first thought that came to mind was how expensive this was going to be, which was honestly depressing.
I had no idea how much time had passed since I lost consciousness. One thing was certain, though. Someone had been visiting regularly. The flowers placed there, my belongings neatly arranged, and even the chair beside the bed that still seemed to hold a trace of warmth.
Baek Seojin—I—had no family left in this place. No parents or siblings, not even a single decent relative. So it was safe to assume there was no guardian staying by my side.
Then it has to be… Suhyun. That kid is the only one.
Maybe, just like last time, he had been coming to visit constantly. Even though the person receiving those visits had been sound asleep, completely unaware of the world.
Who knows, maybe right now the door would open and Suhyun would—
“What? You’re awake?”
Whoa. I barely swallowed the curse that nearly flew out.
“Irina?”
“Yes. Ta-da! It’s me!”
A blonde, blue-eyed woman who spoke Korean more fluently than most natives. Only her appearance was foreign; she was Korean to the bone.
But…
Why the hell was she coming through the window instead of the door?
“Wait. Irina? Is this the first floor by any chance?”
“Here? No? It’s the seventh floor?”
“Then how…”
I swallowed the question of how she had gotten through the window. Up to A-rank, abilities could still be understood within human limits. But starting at S-rank, they transcended even that, literally reaching the realm of “demigods.” Wasn’t Hyun Sujin able to turn into shadows at will? In that context, Irina climbing to the seventh floor wasn’t strange at all.
“More importantly, you finally came to your senses?”
“Ah… yes. Um, by the way, Irina.”
“It’s been exactly one year since you were brought to the hospital.”
I flinched, but the person speaking was none other than Irina. With her unpredictable energy, more than half of everything she said was a lie. Only an idiot would take her at face value.
“Don’t lie.”
“It is true, though?”
“If it’s true, explain why you’re giggling like that.”
“Ah. Was I smiling? Such a mistake.”
Whether it was a genuine mistake or she was just pretending, I couldn’t tell.
“It hasn’t been that long. About… a week? Maybe around that?”
A week wasn’t that long? By my standards, that was an eternity.
“Hey, our handsome Seojin oppa?”
“Yes?”
“Are you just going to leave me out there? Aren’t you going to at least say ‘Come in’ or something?”
Ah, my bad. She looked so natural standing outside the window that I had forgotten.
“Sorry. My head’s still a mess. Come in.”
“Ahaha! I’m sorry too! Actually, I can’t come in.”
…Seriously, do you have mood swings or something? Why was this person like this?
“What do you mean you can’t come in?”
“I haven’t even properly received permission for outside activities, let alone hospital visits. Right now I’m lying about going to the convenience store. I’m supposed to be reflecting and staying quiet.”
“Reflection all of a sudden?”
There was someone in this world capable of making the Irina reflect? That was shocking in its own right. More than that, what exactly had she done to end up in this situation?
“The Jinhan Group! For the crime of touching our handsome Seojin oppa, I cleaned them out completely!”
“Um, when you say cleaned out… you don’t mean what I’m thinking, right…”
“What are you thinking?”
Irina put on an innocent face as if she had no idea what I was talking about. From that alone I already had my answer, so I simply shook my head. Jeong Yuhyeon was definitely a son of a bitch, but what sin had the rest of the group committed?
“Yes. That’s exactly what you thought.”
“Huh?”
“You just thought the employees working under them didn’t do anything wrong, right?”
…Did this woman read minds too?
“Why do you look so surprised? It’s written all over your face. Anyway, that’s why I got scolded. What sin did the other people commit? So I’m in the middle of reflecting, and they told me to stay put and not wander around. But I sneaked out anyway because I wanted to see our Seojin oppa. If I get caught, I’m dead.”
No, but who the hell had her under control? Who could possibly make the world’s Irina unable to move freely?
“Aigoo. You’re so slow. I’m saying Mom will kill me.”
“…Yes?”
What was this now? I stared at her in disbelief, but she simply looked back as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“In our Eastern land of courtesy, children are supposed to listen to their parents, right? Did you really think I was the kind of unfilial daughter who ignores her parents and causes them nothing but heartache?”
“Yes.”
The answer slipped out before I could even think for 0.1 seconds. Sorry, Irina. But seriously, hearing you talk about Eastern courtesy is just too funny.